Facing Reproducibility Fears
May 23, 2018
5/23/18 – Current fears of a “reproducibility crisis” in research are shortsighted, a quartet of scientists and philosophers say, because a key part of scientific inquiry is in fact the integration of conflicting observations and ideas into a coherent theory. But even as failures may lead to success, a longtime science reporter recently argued in Issues that an increasing amount of “poor-quality” biomedical science is amplifying reproducibility problems, and he offered suggestions for reducing built-in pressures on researchers that are having a corrosive effect on output from scientific labs.